Update on “The Audience for AI Films” 2024 December 1

I have been working on “The Audience for AI Films” off and on since May 2023. I have now made it a higher priority and might even get it finished this time.

I created the video with NAWMAL. Although it does not claim to be an AI system, the voices are computer-generated. It did strike me as ironic that I was using it to comment on AI filmmaking.

I had a version that I shared with a couple of people early on. They were positive about it, but I had some doubts about it myself. First off, it felt too short, at less than two minutes. Then, I was having trouble choreographing the characters and camera. So I procrastinated about finishing it.

When I went back to it later I was not happy with the voices. I used computer-generated voices. NAWMAL allows you to record or import actor’s voices, but since the two main characters are robots, I went with the computer-generated voices. The problem was that the voices did not sound robotic enough for me. That stalled me again.

In this go-around, I first concentrated on adding and revising the dialogue. I felt much better with how that turned out. The run length is closer to four minutes now, which is about the length I wanted. I got the choreography of the characters done to my satisfaction.

The next step that I’m stalled on now is the camera placement and choreography. NAWMAL allows you to set up multiple cameras and switch between them in the program. It can be a little finicky at times, especially when the characters move around, which happens in this video. In my previous NAWMAL videos this was not a big problem. This video is a little more complicated and I felt it would take me a long time to get the nuances right. I was stalled again.

I have come up with a different approach. Although NAWMAL allows you to do an entire video with it, I have on occasion gone back and manipulated the video in a video editing program. Usually this is to combine short videos on different sets into a single video, or to speed up action.

What I am thinking is to “shoot” the video the same way I would do a one camera live shoot. This would allow me to set up shots more precisely. It would also allow me to cheat angles to get the images I want. Then I could pull it all together in the editing program.

I am still waffling on the voices though.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog

A New Start For "My Most Difficult Case"

I got back to work on "My Most Difficult Case" this week. My goal was to get all the files organized, but I also started to make some changes to the movie.

Initially I tried to clean up the computer files and get rid of duplicates. That proved to be difficult, so I just sorted files into those I thought I would need to finish the project and those I didn't think I would need.

The video editing program links to all the input files, and so I had to re-link all the files. That was picky work.

I thought I had it all done, when I noticed a problem with one shot. I had done a overlay to cover up some pictures on the wall because I didn't have the rights to them. It turned out that I had a missing file. I went to the back up drives on the assumption that I had accidentally deleted the file when I got rid of duplicates. I spent a half day searching for the files, and couldn't find them. They weren't on the back up disk either, so I must have accidentally deleted them long ago. Finally I decided to recreate the files. It only took a fraction of the time I spent in my search.

I re-cut part of the movie. Years ago I had a professional video editor re-cut the movie and it turned out much better, so I kept most of his changes. One change I had left in was where he put  the murder scene. It had been at the front of the movie and he moved it to the end to be a flashback.

He recognized the actor from the way he walked and felt that would give away the end of the movie. I wanted to move it back to the start, but hadn't tried it until now. I felt that the vast majority of people who see the movie won't know the actor, so they wouldn't recognize him. I'll have another look at it before I decide to keep it or not.

I need to think through what to do next. There are a few tidy up edits that I think are optional. The main issue though, is the sound. I'm not very sure just what I want to do with the sound. As it stands, it is fairly bare boned. I'd also like to do something to build up the voices too. They sound tinny to me.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog